yeah so i decided to not get stuck in UML hell. it feels so nice to try to bridge the literal concepts of game objects to programming in a single flowchart, but it also makes it impossible for me to focus on a reasonable level of detail. i get so hung up on it that it makes progress very difficult. so i pulled back and i'm just writing blocks of text that generally explain what parts of the game should do, and then using vague UML to indicate the relationships. i think this is better. far fewer technical decisions to make.